Drinking Hydrogen Water While Pregnant - Is it safe?

June 23, 2019

While hydrogen water is likely a part of your diet, becoming pregnant means it’s time to reevaluate what you’re ingesting. You’re no longer solely looking after your life. Instead, you’re caring for another. With this in mind, you’re wondering what side effects hydrogen water brings to a pregnancy.

Molecular hydrogen does not come without a plethora of benefits that should be taken into consideration. In this article, we’ll discuss some studies to show proof regarding how the molecular hydrogen found in our hydrogen water can positively impact a pregnancy.

Helps With Rat Placental Stress

In the study Hydrogen-rich water ameliorates rat placental stress induced by water restriction, researchers show how molecular hydrogen can help with placental stress. With dehydration playing such a pivotal role in intrauterine abnormalities that can result in fetal growth retardation, it’s easy to see that this is something that’s best avoided. Dehydration also raises the risk of various adult diseases that occur later on in life.

Through this study, the researchers analyzed how hydrogen-rich water supplementation impacts placental angiotensin II type 1 receptor and placental oxidative stress induced by water restriction. They found that maternal water restriction lessened urine volume and boosted serum osmotic pressure. It also decreased fetus weight and crown-rump length.

Following the oral administration of hydrogen-rich water to the mothers, the placental efficiency increased. Also, the serological derivatives of reactive oxygen metabolites dropped, the placental microstructure improved, the expression of several other important factors in placental health improved. All in all, the study finds that with hydrogen-rich water administration, placental stress caused by water restriction was diminished.

Prior to this study, the researchers showed a maternal immune activation mouse model and how the molecular hydrogen helps with oxidative damage and neuroinflammation. They showed pro-inflammatory cytokine and microglial activation in the fetal brain and how the molecular hydrogen helped to increase these positive outcomes as well. With this being the case, the researchers analyzed short-term memory, social novelty and sociability, and sensorimotor gating by using the three-chamber, Y-maze, and prepulse inhibition (PPI) tests during postnatal 3 or 4 weeks.

The researchers looked at the number of neurons and oligodendrocytes during postnatal 5 weeks with an immunohistochemical analysis as well. There were deficits in the offsprings’ short-term memory and social interaction if they were exposed to maternal immune activation induced by lipopolysaccharide. They also experienced neuronal and oligodendrocytic loss in the cortex and amygdala. With maternal molecular hydrogen introduction, the number of LPS-induced abnormalities decreased.

Through further analysis, these researchers also looked at the impact of molecular hydrogen on LPS-induced astrocytic activation in vivo and in vitro. There was an increase in the number of activated astrocytes with hypertrophic morphology in the LPS-exposed offspring. But for the offspring of the women given molecular hydrogen, this number was less.

Looking at the primary cultured astrocytes, the LPS-induced pro-inflammatory cytokines were not as common when molecular hydrogen was involved. In essence, the findings show that with maternal molecular hydrogen administration comes neuroprotective impacts and less of a chance of neurodevelopmental deficits in offspring later on in life if they have had maternal immune activation induced.

Conclusion

Looking at the hydrogen water side effects that molecular hydrogen can have on pregnancy results in an understanding that hydrogen water is safe for consumption while pregnant. With this in mind, knowing that your offspring can benefit from additional hydrogen makes our pouches the go-to nutritious beverage for pregnant women everywhere!